How to Secure a Website

Making your website secure should be a primary concern for any E-commerce business. An insecure website can lead to anything from complete disaster to a loss of business. If your website is not safe customers will be extremely reluctant to provide personal and financial information. The following are important steps in ensuring the safety of your website.

Use open source programs

Developing custom code for is expensive and the code can leave a website vulnerable to an attack from hackers if it is not written well. Open source platforms like WordPress, Drupal and Magento are harder to attack because many of the kinks/vulnerabilities in the code have been eliminated by the programmer community using this platform. Only use proprietary coding if there is no open source solution for an issue at hand.

Update all software

Hackers are always on the lookout for vulnerable coding. Many software updates will not give the users new features but will address vulnerabilities that were overlooked when the code was originally written. Hackers can easily attack a website if they know a specific point of weakness in a website. Always update software even if the update does not offer new features.

Make strong passwords

According to SplashData the the five most common passwords used on the internet are:

password

123456

12345678

abc123

qwerty

These passwords are extremely predictable and very vulnerable to attack. It is good idea to use a random password generator to create a difficult password for hackers to predict. It is good idea to have a password that uses a mix of number and letters in different cases.

Security Plugins

All well established platforms offer scripts that make can help make a website more secure. These scripts can make credit card information transfer safer and prevent email systems from being attacked. These plugin can also identify and eliminate viruses that have made their way onto a server. Letting customers know that you have good security plugins will make customers feel safer doing business on a website.

Hire A consultant

If a hacker takes over a website then it likely that hacker will do something that will get the website blacklisted on Google. If Google or another search engine realizes that a website is being used to distribute spyware and/or viruses then Google will remove the website from its search results. Outside consultants can monitor a website’s status with Google and in the case of an attack can make sure the website is not blacklisted with Google. It can be extremely costly for a website if it loses organic traffic (even if it is just for a short time).

The steps outlined above are simple, straightforward. They require either minimal effort or at most a small expenditure. The security of your website is worth it!

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About the Author

Teddy Luben is a web entrepreneur who has founded and co-founded several music Web sites and related blogs. He is an editorial contributor to Inc Plan Start Up blogs. Teddy is a recent graduate of Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA.